France vs. Italy

For most Finns, ice hockey is THE team sport par excellence. And I'm no exception to that rule. So I didn't much hesitate, when my Italian colleague Ilario suggested we go and see Italy play France at the under 18-year old world championships at Nice. After all, he managed to get us a discount - we were paying 3 Euros instead of the normal 5 Euros ;)

I didn't have high expectations about the quality of play - this was after all under-18 year olds, and Italy and France are not exactly grade A nations when it comes to ice hockey (actually, I slightly exaggerated when I said world championships - actually this was the 1st Division...). Things kicked off pretty well for Italy, after some pretty solid play, they came out of the first period with a lead of 2 goals to none. The level was about as expected - a lot of enthusiasm, but not a huge amount of skill.


The 2nd and 3rd periods saw France claw themselves back into the game, and eventually win the game. All in all, a pretty entertaining way to spend a Sunday evening! Even if the level wasn't quite up at the same level as the ice hockey we were treated to recently at the Shotchi winter olympics! Ilario seemed to have enjoyed his first ice hockey game ever as well.